


The Other Side of the Street (the Ziggy is a P.I.M.P. Telephone Tag Remix)

by SnarkyLlama



Category: Backstreet Boys, NSYNC
Genre: Bodyswap, M/M, Remix
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-11-30
Updated: 2009-11-30
Packaged: 2017-10-04 00:28:52
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,877
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23983
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SnarkyLlama/pseuds/SnarkyLlama
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>JC Chasez and Kevin Richardson: veteran body swappers.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Other Side of the Street (the Ziggy is a P.I.M.P. Telephone Tag Remix)

**Author's Note:**

> My Remix7 fic, remixing [The Other Side of the Street](http://www.maketheyuletidegay.org/appthena.do?o.action=view_story&o.key=109) by Steph (puszysty).

It started when Kevin woke up in bed with a woman. A woman who was... Brian? Holy crap. Kevin almost wet himself before he overcame his shock, grabbed Brian by the shoulder, and shook her.

"Oh god. Oh god, Brian. What happened to you?"

The rude awakening didn't sit well with Brian. She slapped Kevin's hands away, and then flipped her hair back over her shoulder.

"Excuse me? 'Brian'? What were you smoking last night?"

Kevin tried not to stare at her breasts. It didn't seem right, and who knew Brian could have such a nice rack? He had to cover his eyes.

"Look, we can fix this. I don't know how this happened, but we can definitely fix this. I won't let you be stuck like--" A sudden thought struck him. "Uh. Unless you want to be a woman? Is this something you've always--"

"Jesus," Brian said. She shoved Kevin aside and kicked her feet free from the blankets. "Those bitches, those fucking bitches on the boards were right. You're a freak. No lay is worth this shit, so you can just--" She snatched up her clothes. "Just... Fuck off, JC!"

As the door slammed behind her, Kevin realized two things. One, it would take more than a surprise sex change to make Brian swear like that. And, two, they weren't on the bus, the bus that he shared with Brian, Brian who wasn't a girl. Huh.

"Brian?" he called. "Hey, Bri?"

Brian was a good wing man. He wouldn't let a buddy get trashed and whisked away into a strange bed with a strange woman, unless it was a prank. If Frick and Frack were back at it again...

"Brian?"

He strained to catch the familiar sound of Nick's smothered giggles. Maybe they were hiding in the closet. He silently crept up to the closet door. On the mental count of three, he flung the door open--

It wasn't a closet. It was a bathroom, a sparkling, bright, heavily-mirrored bathroom.

\--and screamed.

*

JC woke up when his alarm went off. That was strange because he'd never actually figured out how to set his new one. It was cool to look at, but otherwise pretty useless. Maybe the smoking hot mami he'd picked up last night had set it. He'd get her to show him how, after he got the wake-up sex she'd promised him. Mmm, mmm, mmm. He rolled over to turn off the alarm, thinking about a hot mouth stretched around his dick, a tongue lapping at his balls, and nails digging into the backs of his thighs. Oh, yeah, she could scratch him up good. He reached down to stroke his dick, to get it nice and extra-hard for her and--

Oh, hey, wow. That was not his dick.

It was happening again.

He wrapped his hand around the strange dick and lazily jacked it, just trying the new equipment out, you know. He had to see if everything worked all right, and yeah. Yeah. It was really nice, quickly filling and responsive. He took a moment to wonder who he was and who he would need to fuck this time, then opened his eyes and met Brian Littrell's startled gaze.

"Oh, ah. Um. Sorry," Brian said, averting his eyes.

Well. That was unexpected.

He'd always thought that Brian was the least gay of the Backstreet Boys, but then, you never really knew what lurked beneath placid boyband waters. This would be interesting. He hadn't had a leap fuck with someone he knew since that time with the hot tub and the nipple clamps and Ms. Harless, back when he'd been Chris. Yeah. And while Brian Littrell wasn't his usual type, he was still pretty doable. It wouldn't be a hardship.

JC stroked his new dick again.

Brian cleared his throat. "Kevin, um..."

Kevin? Kevin Richardson?

Oh, hell no. JC jumped up, then tripped in the tangled bed sheets and fell.

"Shit! Kev, are you okay?"

JC just lay on the floor and shook his head. This was so not okay.

*

The way JC told it, television had saved his life.

Actually, he'd said it that way only once. Then Chris had snorted and called him a drama queen and spent the next two weeks crying "Help, help! I'm drowning! Throw me the television!" whenever JC entered the room. Now, JC would only say that TV had saved his sanity. Chris still snorted at that, but a muttered "That's debatable" was highly preferable to a full-blown case of Kirkpatrick ridicule.

Television had saved him by giving him a framework within which his life made sense. There he'd been, poised at the brink of puberty--teetering towards the teens, if you will--and then, Blam! Like a runaway train, he'd crashed head-first into a great big load of crazy. And it had happened again and again and again, so really, he was more like a boxcar full of crazy stuck on the revolving tracks at Cuckoo Station.

It could have been bad. He could have given into the madness. He'd even thought about running away, so the madness wouldn't infect his family. But then TV, and his mother's little crush on Scott Bakula, stepped in and saved the day. He caught an episode of _Quantum Leap_ with her and everything fell into place. He didn't understand the mechanics of it, and he probably never would, but he knew what was happening and had a good idea why. Just as Dr. Sam Beckett leaped from life to life, striving to put right what once went wrong, JC leaped from bed to bed, striving to fuck right what had been fucked wrong... or not fucked at all or... well. No.

It wasn't as crude as that made it sound. It wasn't like he had a magical cock or life-changing hip thrusts or anything. He just... well. It was just the way things were. It was a cosmic mystery, sometimes strange and often beautiful, and it had enriched his life and inspired his music in so many ways that he would never regret it. The difficulties it created in his own life were insignificant in comparison.

JC had been hundreds of men and women--and even a few "in between"--and every time, he hadn't leaped back to his own body until he'd made a sexual connection with someone of special significance to the original inhabitant of his current body. He'd been virgins and sluts. He'd been gay, straight, and all sorts of twisted. He'd made sweet, sweet love and fucked like an animal. All in all, in fifteen years, he'd sampled more things sexually than most people tried in a lifetime, but... if he had to fuck Brian while in his cousin's body... Well. That was just weird. Everyone had to draw a line somewhere, right?

Right. Well, there you go. Extramarital, gay boyband incest was his line in the sand.

Unless that was the only way back...

But no, Brian couldn't be the one. It had to be someone else.

"Um," Brian said. "I don't want to interrupt your little, uh, catnap there, but do you need help? You've been on the floor for like five minutes now, old man."

"No, no. I'm fine. Just thinking."

"About what you said last night? Kev, I..."

Brian dropped down to sit beside him. Their thighs touched, and JC had to hold his breath and try not to be weirded out.

"You know, it's pretty exciting, thinking about starting a family. But it seems like maybe you don't want to talk about it, and well... are you afraid that it'll be the end of things? It doesn't have to be. You don't have to leave to start a family, you know? Just look at me and Leighanne." Brian nudged his knee and grinned. "We're making it work pretty good, right? And Baylee, man, Baylee's the greatest. He's worth all the extra juggling to make things work."

Whoa! Was Kevin was thinking about leaving Backstreet? Or just about the family thing? Would the group break up? Wow. That was just... Wow. If anything, JC would have bet on Nick being the one to break up the Boys. He was their Justin, after all.

"Well," Brian said. "I guess you still don't want to talk about it, huh? I, uh... You know you can talk to me anytime, right? We can pray about it if you want, and... you know I've got your back, right? No matter what you decide."

*

Kevin couldn't believe his eyes. He was... he was... JC Chasez.

It was happening again.

He kicked the bathroom door. Oh, fucking hell, it was happening again. He'd been certain, dead certain, that it had stopped. Fifteen years of nearly weekly trips out of his body, fifteen years as a pawn of destiny, without control over his own life, and then, just short of his twenty-eighth birthday, it had mercifully stopped. Fuck. He'd been so certain. He'd thought it was safe. He'd waited for over a year, and then said a prayer of thanks, and finally got on with his life and married Kristin. Hell, this was probably his fault for daring to think he could maybe start a family. He'd tempted fate and now he was JC Fuckin' Chasez.

How could there possibly be anything so wrong with JC's life that destiny needed to call him out of retirement to go fix it? NSYNC had earned obscene amounts of money, so it wasn't like JC was hurting for lack of anything. And yeah, his solo album hadn't done well, but come on. It had been full of weird, alien monkey sex and shit, and JC totally seemed like the sort of "artist" who'd be perfectly content to make a pittance as long as he could write and sing a thousand weird songs about alien monkey sex.

How could he even begin to fix that?

A phone started to ring, and Kevin searched around for it. There was a chance that it was JC calling. JC must have discovered the switch by now, and he had to be smart enough to at least try calling his own phone. God. JC was on a bus with Brian, somewhere between Italy and Germany, and probably freaking the fuck out. Kevin needed to get him calmed down ASAP. He'd never told Brian about the switching and he'd like to keep it that way, not because he was still invested in the idea of keeping it a secret from everyone--he'd matured enough to be beyond that now--but because he didn't want Brian to find out and be hurt that Kevin had kept the secret for so long.

"Hello?"

"Hey, Jace! I'm surprised you answered, thought I was going to be talking to your voicemail for the fourteen thousandth time--"

Hmm. Now that was interesting. Was JC avoiding Justin Timberlake? Were there bad feelings there? Maybe that was something that Kevin could fix.

*

Chris had learned of JC's leaps when he woke up in Germany as a "singing, dancing fashion victim." Somehow, Chris' version of the story was always missing a few key elements, like how he'd been sporting braces and multicolored braids back then, so if anything, he'd become less of a fashion victim that day. And, Chris hadn't been in much of a hurry to get his own body back, because the leap had opened up a whole new avenue of mischief-making for him. They'd spent a week as each other.

JC didn't normally have much contact with the person who was occupying his body while he was busy running around trying to actualize their sexual healing. It had been nice to not rush for once, and he'd really enjoyed that leap--and not just for the kinky hot tub threesome with himself and Justin's mother.

That week, he'd felt closer to Chris than he'd ever felt to anyone, and afterwards, that feeling of closeness had lingered. He'd finally had someone to talk to about his experiences. He'd come to depend on it. And sometimes, now that NSYNC was on hiatus, he looked forward to leaps just because it meant he could spend a half-hour or so talking to Chris.

In addition to that, Chris had become JC's own private version of Al, Dean Stockton's _Quantum Leap_ character. They didn't have an AI supercomputer or holograms or top-secret military technology, but he could always call Chris to get an extra brain on the case on those few occasions when it wasn't plainly obvious who JC needed to fuck.

He didn't really need Chris' input now. There were three members of Backstreet to work through before he'd have to address the fucking cousins issue. And seriously, a good fuck or two with Howie would probably fix everything. Howie was a hot little number, and JC was pretty sure that Kevin hadn't ever tapped that. Kevin always looked too tense to be the recipient of some hot, Latin loving... or maybe his eyebrows were really misleading. They sure looked tense, though. Like... could eyebrows be constipated? There was only one way to find out.

He didn't need to call Chris, but he did. Lately, he pretty much always did if he could think up an excuse for calling. It was easy this time. He thought Chris would get a kick out of it, because how often does someone randomly get a call from a Backstreet Boy?

Chris, apparently, got them all the time.

"Oh, hey, Kev. What's up? You still on tour?"

JC sputtered.

"You. You do not have Kevin Richardson's number on your cell phone. There's no way."

"Oh, you'd be surprised. As founding members of the Geriatric Boybander Club, Kevin and I share quite a few common interests, though, I must admit, talking about ourselves in third person isn't one of them. So, who are you and why do you have Kevin's phone?"

"It's me," JC said. That's all he ever needed to say.

"Holy shit. You didn't. You. You leaped into Kevin Richardson?"

"Yeah."

"Holy shit." There was a pause and when Chris' voice came again, it sounded a little different like maybe he'd stepped into a room where he could speak more freely. "Hey, he's got a camera phone, right? You could really help me out here."

"Yeah, it looks like a normal phone, so it's probably got a camera, but--"

"Send me a picture of his dick."

"What--? No."

"It's not what it sounds like. It would just be doing me a little favor, I've got this bet with--"

"No."

"It's there, you're there, the camera's there. Come on, 'C, you'd do it if it were your own dick."

"What will you do with it?"

"Nothing bad. The pictures won't leave my phone, I swear."

JC sent him the picture, and then he got hard and sent a him a few more. And then he accidentally tripped the button that put it into video mode, and JC couldn't help himself. Indulging in one of his personal kinks while in someone else's body, and doing it entirely for himself, was all sorts of freaky hot... though it did make him feel a tiny bit guilty afterwards.

He was still coming down from his orgasm when Chris said, "Hey, Kevin?"

"No, it's me."

"Huh," Chris said. "I would've sworn that Kevin had a deep, secret desire to have phone sex with me."

"That wasn't phone sex. That was just you listening to me pant a little. And if you were listening, well, it sounds more like you had a deep-seated desire to have phone sex with Kevin."

"Ha! Hardly. I was just trying to save you all of the bother of having to sleep your way through Backstreet or something."

That was really considerate of him, but Chris didn't understand that being an instrument of sexual healing wasn't ever a burden for JC. It was a privilege and a challenge he'd always face with enthusiasm--unless, of course, it was extramarital, gay boyband incest. It was important to have standards.

*

Justin wanted to throw some song ideas around with JC. There was something in his voice when he mentioned all the calls that JC hadn't returned and how JC really needed to drag himself away from the soundboard sometimes. It was like four parts whiny, spoiled puppy--which Kevin figured had to be normal for Justin--and one part puppy who'd just peed on the floor and realizes it's done something wrong, but has no idea what. Kevin couldn't say no to that, and even more importantly, he thought that JC shouldn't say no to that.

Bandmates were important. Even if your band wasn't together any more or if you maybe didn't even want to be in the band any more, there was a tie there, a bond that could maybe be loosened, but could never be severed without irreparable damage to yourself. Maybe Kevin had been sent here for this very purpose. The timing was right. He could have been switched over just in time to take this call.

"Yeah, that sounds good. Let's do it."

"Wow!" Justin said. "Really? Thanks, 'C. I really--" Kevin could almost hear Justin's puppy-dog tail wagging out of control. Justin must have heard it, too, because he coughed suddenly and reigned in his enthusiasm. "Yeah. Anyway. So my schedule's pretty full, but how about your place, Tuesday? I'll call you Monday night and let you know what time."

Tuesday? But it was only Thursday now, and Kristin was going to be meeting up with them soon. He really didn't want to think about Kristin and JC alone in a hotel room together, but maybe agreeing to the plan would be enough to switch him back. It had to be, they had a show tomorrow tonight. Through all the craziness, he'd never missed a show. Someone upstairs was watching out for him, even if they liked jerking him around most of the time.

"That'll be great, Justin. I'm looking forward to it."

He ended the call, then sat at the edge of the bed and waited. He watched the digits on JC's alarm clock mark the passage of twenty very slow minutes before resigning himself to the fact that he hadn't done enough yet to earn his way home. He sighed and opened up JC's phone again. He entered the date with Justin into its calendar app, then dialed his own number.

*

JC ended the call with Chris, but before he could even put the phone down, it started ringing. He almost ignored it 'cause he really wanted a nap and then maybe a quick shower, but he glanced at the screen and knew the incoming number. It was his own. That was cool; it was amazing how many people didn't think to call themselves during a leap, though maybe that was because most people thought the leaps were hallucinations or something.

Well, Kevin obviously had a good head on his shoulders. JC would keep this calm and soothing and sensible, and everything would be fine.

"Hey, Kevin. I know this is a bit--"

"JC? Hey, I'm glad you picked up. I bet you're a bit--"

"--weird, but I promise you, you're in good--"

"--freaked out, but it's okay. Nothing bad's going to--"

"--hands, so just--"

"--happen, so just--"

"--take a deep breath--"

"--take a--what?"

"What?" JC said.

"What?" Kevin said. "What the--?"

"Wow. I think. Wow. Am I like a mind-reader now, too?"

That would be really, really cool.

"No. No one's a mind-reader here, so just take a deep breath--"

"But that's what I was trying to tell you!"

Was JC reading Kevin's thoughts or was he only projecting his thoughts back into his own body? Either way, this had the potential to be huge. He'd be able to help people even more efficiently and--

"Holy crap," Kevin said. "You don't need to breathe, because you're fuckin' hyperventilating. Just stop. Stop and uh... just... clear your mind. God knows, you should be good at that."

Was that...

"Was that an insult? Are you implying something here, Kevin? 'Cause really, negativity is not the answer. I know that things are a bit overwhelming right now, but I think you'll find that... that, you know, a positive mind set would really behoove you right now and--"

"Did you just--? 'Behoove'? Is this conversation really happening? I'm not imagining all this, am I?"

"No, you're not imagining this. I know it's a bit alarming, but it's really nothing to be afraid of. It's only--"

"I'm not talking about the situation! I've got the situation handled. I'm talking about this fucking--"

"Now wait just a moment, mister," JC said, and then cringed, because he'd sounded exactly like his mother. "I hear you want to start a family, and let me tell you, you won't get very far in the fathering business if you keep acting like this. Don't you have any listening skills?"

"How do you know about that? Did Brian--?"

"I'm not telling you anything until this stops feeling like an interrogat--Oh! Hey, have you had any coffee yet?"

"What? No. No, I've been trying to figure out--"

"Oh, you should. I've got a nice place, make yourself at home. And, dude, seriously, you're going to need some coffee. The body you're in now is a caffeine fiend. If you want, I'll talk you through it, and then you can stop being Mr. Crabby."

*

That girl and, apparently, all those fucking bitches on the message boards were right. JC was a total freak.

Still, the coffee was a good idea. Kevin felt better already, and if he could find some breakfast, he'd be perfect. He firmly believed that saying about armies marching on their stomachs. If he had enough fuel, he could handle anything, even another freaky conversation with Mr. Tangential-Asides Chasez.

He went rummaging through the cupboards, but didn't have much luck. There was, thank goodness, a box of cinnamon Pop-Tarts that looked edible. Everything else was slim pickins: an ancient jar of chunky peanut butter, a few single-serving bags of microwave popcorn--didn't JC have friends?--and a box of organic mac and cheese. The fridge was similarly empty: a half empty jug of milk, a jar of prickly pear jelly--what the hell?--a six pack of Magic Hat, and some Parmesan cheese. It was no surprise that JC was so much thinner that the rest of NSYNC. He obviously didn't know how to feed himself.

He might have to kill someone if this whole switch turned out to be nothing more than an over-the-top attempt to get JC some fucking groceries.

After he finished the Pop-Tarts, he called JC back.

"Oh, hey," JC said. "Great timing. I just got out of the shower and so I was thinking--"

"JC, if I may just interrupt. I know this must be really crazy for you right now, but I'm in a bit of a hurry. There's a show tomorrow, and--"

"Oh, don't worry about it. I can fill in for you, you know. I was in this little band and I can actually sing and dance."

Oh, shit. The Powers That Be had probably taken that into account. JC could, quite possibly, cover for him with the tour, so they could just stick Kevin here indeterminedly, until he got it right.

"Okay, yeah. Just cover for me and I've got the rest of this handled."

Somehow.

"The rest of what?" JC said. "You can totally chill out, man, but I've got a job to do."

"All you have to do is ask for the tape of last night's show. Get the moves down, maybe ask for an extra practice tonight."

"No, no, I'll do that, too. But my main focus has to be working to get you back in your body, you know?"

"You. You--What?"

What the hell? That wasn't how this worked.

"You're never going to believe this," JC said. "But... Well, this is what I do. I leap into bodies and I fix things."

"You. No. This isn't about you. I fix things."

"Well, you seem pretty capable in your normal life, but you don't understand. This is my calling. I'm here in your body to fix something for you."

"JC! That's crazy--"

"No--"

"I fix things," Kevin said. "I'm you because you need to be fixed."

"I do not! There's nothing wrong with me."

"Well, something in your life must be epically wrong, because I've had six years without a single switch and now there's you, and I'm--"

"Whoa!" You 'switch'? Like... you switch bodies, too?"

_Too_?

"JC. You don't. Do you switch bodies, too?"

"Oh my god! How awesome is this? I can't believe. I thought I was alone in this, except for Scott Bakula, of course."

Un-fucking-believable.

Back when Kevin was young and hadn't yet realized how very unlikely it was that he would ever meet another person like himself, he used to imagine how it would be. The guy would be a little older than him, a little wiser--in a tough, street-smarts sort of way that was, okay, more than a little inspired by Han Solo, but that wasn't gay or anything because Kevin was a child of the 70s and that's just the way things were. They'd meet up, the guy would teach him the ropes, and then they'd band together in order to stop this thing. They'd get their lives back, they'd be normal and also buddies, and they'd open a dojo together or something.

Well. Okay. That had been pretty stupid, but still, this was too much. Instead of meeting someone who could help him beat this thing, he'd found some crazy, child-star, boybander who thought television was real.

"You know," Kevin said. "Scott Bakula isn't real."

"Of course he's real. I saw him once at Starbucks, thought about asking for his--"

"I meant, _Quantum Leap_ isn't real."

"Well, sure. I know that, but I bet you anything, someone on that writing team knew a thing or two..."

It took a while, but eventually, they reached a consensus. JC was certain that he was supposed to fix something in Kevin's life, even though there wasn't anything in Kevin's life that he wasn't perfectly capable of fixing for himself. Kevin was certain that he was supposed to fix something in JC's. But, given the unusual circumstances--why would the Powers That Be waste body-swapping resources?--maybe both of them needed to fix something in the other's life. It made Kevin's gut clench to think of JC doing anything to alter his life in any way, but it made the most sense, in terms of time-management and efficiency, for them both to proceed as they normally would. If, in fact, they both had a task to complete, Kevin didn't want to be stuck here because JC was slacking off on his end.

He said goodbye to JC, then sat down at the breakfast table and started making a list. When you didn't know what The Big Problem was, it didn't hurt to line up all the little ones. It would give him a better feel for the lay of the land.

JC was in desperate need of groceries. That could be because he was just generally clueless in the kitchen. But maybe it was a sign that he was too outwardly focused. Was he spending so much time helping others that he was neglecting himself? Was there anything--besides a grocery run--that Kevin could accomplish there?

JC's relationship with Justin was a little strained. Was that a temporary problem or something deeper? Kevin was doing something about this, but did it extend beyond Justin?

And, JC did one thing that Kevin would never do. He brought strange girls into his own home. That wasn't safe. Could he convince JC to listen to the advice of his security guys? Did JC even have security any more? He should at least change his locks... Oh. But. Hadn't JC just had a nasty break-up? Maybe not nasty, but public. Very public. Yeah. With a... Eva Longoria. Really, what was it with some stars and their high-profile celebrity relationships? Kevin would choose something quiet and beautiful like what he had with Kristin over all the splash and glamor and Justin Timberlake-iness in the world.

But he didn't see how he could help JC there. He wasn't a matchmaker.

It would be different maybe if he could question JC's closest friends, get a better feel for what JC liked--and more importantly, what JC needed. But that was never an option. You couldn't really go up to someone and say, "Hey, you're my best friend, or so the media tells me. Will you please tell me about myself?" There was too much room for error, and what happened if you really fucked something up during a switch? He'd never been willing to test whether or not he could get permanently stuck.

*

Something was up with Kevin. Every time Brian got anywhere near him, he got this sort of panicked look on his face and started twitching. It was really weird, but maybe it was stress. He had a lot on his mind right now, trying to figure out how to juggle a family and the band.

But still, Kevin had grabbed the tape from last night's show almost three hours ago and he hadn't come back yet. If it had been any of the other guys, Brian wouldn't be concerned, but Kevin was a reader. He liked to spend most of his time out here, where the light was better. Maybe his fall this morning had been harder than it looked. He should check on him, make sure he didn't have a concussion or something.

Kevin was dancing in front of the TV, in that crowded "Is this a dance club or a sardine can?" way that being on the bus necessitated. They'd all done it on occasion, but usually they didn't mess up the moves when they did.

"Um, Kevin?"

Kevin jumped, then stumbled over himself as he half turned, half backed away.

"Yeah?"

"You seem rather... uncoordinated. Are you sure you didn't hurt yourself this morning? We can always stop and get you looked at. Skip practice tonight."

"No," Kevin said. "I'm fine, I'm great. But I think... uh... I should get in some extra practice tonight. I looked a little rough on the tape, I gotta make sure my moves work on... Uh. I need to move more with the flow of the other guys, you know. Especially with Howie... and maybe Nick."

"I thought we all looked great last night. But yeah, we can work in a little extra practice. But if you start feeling dizzy or anything, let me know. Immediately. Okay? Head injuries aren't anything to mess with."

He left Kevin to his dancing, but didn't feel any better than he had before. When the buses finally pulled up to the hotel, Brian was thankful that they didn't have any interviews today. Even if the press didn't notice, their fans would definitely notice that something was a little off with Kevin. And there would be no hiding it from the other guys, either.

Howie caught Brian as he was getting into the elevator.

"Hey, I'm going to ride your bus after tomorrow."

"I dunno, man. Kevin's been kinda weird lately." Brian didn't know how to explain it to Howie.

"Kevin's always weird," Howie said.

"Not weird like this, he's--"

Well. No. Now that he thought about it, Kevin used to be weird like this a lot. He'd had these really weird mood swings where like the only thing regular about them was their irregularity. He'd be really anxious and strange one day for no reason, then go right back to normal. A week would pass, sometimes more, and then he'd have another spell. But the next time he'd be jittery or stuttering or dead quiet or agitated or--well, you get the idea. His mood swings never swung the same way twice.

But that had stopped. He'd asked about it then, not wanting to say much because Kevin was obviously sensitive about his moodiness, but it had felt like the right time to address it. Kevin had explained that he was taking part in a drug trial, testing out a mood stabilizer, and he wasn't sure how it would work, but he had high hopes. Well. The drug seemed to have worked, but... if it had, what was happening now? Should he ask Kevin about the drug trial or should he continue respecting Kevin's privacy in--

"Brian. Earth to Brian. What's up?"

"I dunno. He's just... acting strange."

"Well, you're acting strangely, too. And AJ and Nick are acting like AJ and Nick, so I'm joining your bus no matter what."

"Cheese?" Brian asked. AJ and Nick were both a touch lactose intolerant, but that never stopped them from pigging out on the stuff.

"Porn."

Ah. Well. Howie didn't need to say more.

*

JC thought he did pretty well during their practice. Sure, they all noticed he was a little off and he'd forgotten, if he ever knew in the first place, that Kevin was their bass. But once they set him straight, he just imagined that he was Lance at a Backstreet karaoke night, and he was fine.

Howie kept sneaking looks at him. JC was pretty sure he had a chance there. Well, Kevin had a chance. JC just had to figure out how to flirt with him subtly. It wouldn't be good if Brian caught on. Brian knew that the real Kevin was thinking about making babies with his wife. Guys like that probably didn't hit on their male bandmates... or maybe they did. Impending fatherhood was a lot of pressure, and JC had even caught Joey looking at him a time or two back when Kelly was pregnant.

Well. He'd get Howie to do a lot more than just look tonight.

*

Kevin was still JC when he woke up the next day. He wasn't really surprised. It would have been really lame to have been switched for nothing more than taking a phone call from Justin, buying groceries, and changing the sheets on JC's bed. He'd also spent some time Googling JC and reading a backlog of entertainment bulletins and gossip blogs. It was disgusting. He hated that sort of stuff, but he had to do the research, even if he'd only believe ten percent of it on a good day.

He didn't feel any closer to a solution than he had at this time yesterday. It was frustrating. He didn't want to wait around until his appointment with Justin. There had to be something else he could do. It was Friday, there was only a week left of their tour, and he needed to be there. More than that, he... really wanted to be there.

Wow. When was the last time he'd felt like that? Some time during the Millennium tour? Had it really been that long? Well. It wasn't like he'd been suffering. He'd wanted to be there for the guys long after he'd stopped wanting to be there. But it made everything even more unfair now. He wasn't going to let this switch take what could very well be his last days with his boys from him. He was going to call Jus--

What was that? The doorbell?

It took him a minute to get downstairs and figure out which door it was and how many people had the gate code, and then he was peering out the window and staring at Chris Kirkpatrick who was grinning like a maniac and waving back at him. He tried to recall everything he knew about JC's relationship with Chris while he hit the security code and opened the door.

"Hey, Chris," he said and then the alarm started chirping. Shit. He must have punched it in wrong. What had JC said?

Chris reached over and punched in the code.

"Hey, Kev. Didn't JC tell you how to do the locks?"

"No, he did, but I... uh..."

Didn't JC what? How did--

"Hey, don't sweat it. He probably fucked it up when he told you. I think his brother had to set it up for him the first three--"

"You know I'm not JC."

"The first three times, and yeah, I know that. Or did you think 'Kev' was just my special little nickname for 'C?"

"You know I'm Kevin."

Chris snorted at that.

"Sorry," Kevin said. "That was stupid. I'm just-- What are you doing here?"

Chris brushed past Kevin, stepping several feet farther into the foyer. He seemed to do a visual check of the place before he turned around and cocked his head, and Kevin couldn't decide if their height difference made that necessary or if Chris was just that cocky.

"What?" Chris said, his gaze steady and pointed, and Kevin remembered that JC was definitely shorter than him and Chris was a cocky bastard. "A friend wakes up in another friend's body, and I can't come lend a hand?"

"You live in Orlando."

"Yeah, they have these nifty things called 'aeroplanes.' You should maybe try 'em sometime. Fast, convenient--"

"No. I'm sorry. Just--"

Why Chris? If JC had told his friends about this, why was it Chris? Justin lived out here, and he thought Lance did, too. And Chris had just mentioned JC's brother. Where was he?

Oh. Maybe JC was estranged from even more people than Kevin had suspected. Or maybe this was about Chris having jack to do after NSYNC's "hiatus" that so obviously wasn't a hiatus.

"I'm surprised he told you," Kevin said finally. "Did he... uh..."

"Look, if we're going to talk, can we at least get out of the doorway?"

JC's foyer hardly qualified as a doorway, but Kevin shrugged and followed Chris into the sitting room with the red throw rugs and the zebra-striped couch. Chris quickly toed out of his shoes.

"Should I get you a drink or something?" he asked.

Chris shook his head.

"I know where everything is. I can help myself."

Chris shuffled his feet for a moment like he'd maybe wanted to start pacing, but then thought better of it. He kicked at the edge of the largest rug, lifting it enough to slide his toes underneath. His socks were red, a shade that clashed terribly with the rugs. Chris was probably unnerved by all of this and trying his best to hide it. JC must have kept his switching a secret until now. Kevin could easily picture Brian in Chris' spot, acting the same way.

"I know this is probably a bit freaky for you, but I promise--"

Chris laughed, then cut it off abruptly and held up his hand.

"Sorry, Kevin. No disrespect, man, but no. No. On The Big List of Things that Make JC Chasez a Freak, this is... I don't know." Chris rubbed at his chin. "Back on page four at least. It would be higher if like, it wasn't real and JC still believed in it as much. But it's not. You really can't argue with-- Hey. Why don't you sit down?"

Kevin hesitated.

"Come on, take a seat. You'll thank me in a minute."

"Will you just get on with it?"

"Okay. So. I help JC out sometimes, help him figure things out so he can get back faster. You understand?"

Kevin nodded.

"Okay. Good. So, to make this brief and painless for everyone--"

Kevin didn't like the sound of that.

"--will you just tell me which Backstreet Boy JC needs to fuck?"

What?

"What!"

"Which Backstreet Boy does JC need to fuck for you?"

Kevin sat down. Hard.

*

Yeah, Chris helped JC out a lot. Mostly, it had been back when they were all together and he covered for JC's absences from his body by mocking him and helping to build up his rep as a flighty, absent-minded freak. And, okay, Chris probably would have done that anyhow, even if he hadn't had first-hand experience of JC's bizarre... talent. But it was nice that he could do that in the spirit of helpfulness and solidarity instead of out of his general snarkiness. It made him a better person. JC made him a better person that way.

And sometimes, Chris helped JC figure out who he needed to fuck, but he'd never actually questioned the poor sap in JC's body. Not directly like this, and, hell, it had been a couple years since he'd even seen JC's body while someone else was in it. But this was an important case.

Normally, Chris was a kinky bastard and he loved having an in, a ringside seat to JC's extremely kinky world. But this was different. These were people JC knew. These were his peers. These guys were all successful, talented, and attractive--though not nearly as successful, talented, and attractive as NSYNC--and Chris just really didn't want... He felt threatened by the very thought of JC sleeping with Howie or Nick.

"What is wrong with you?" Kevin said. "I'm not gay. I'm fucking married, to a woman I love, and no. Just no. JC's not fucking anyone. Backstreet is not gay."

Yeah, yeah, and if Kevin really believed that, he'd never looked too hard at Nick or Howie. Hell, Chris even had his doubts about AJ sometimes.

"Fine," Chris said. "Fine, you're not gay. Backstreet's not-- Well. Is it one of the mothers? God, please don't tell me it's Jane--"

Kevin shot up off the couch.

"What kind of sick game are you playing here? JC should just keep it in his fucking pants!"

"Well, that would be a little hard, seeing as how you're wearing his pants!"

They argued a little, then broke for coffee and a breakfast Chris really couldn't enjoy because he was so busy talking, talking, making Kevin see just where they stood. Kevin claimed that he was a body-switcher too, which was just crazy, too many levels of crazy, and why couldn't this be easy? Why couldn't Kevin just admit to a secret hankering for AJ or Brian and--

Chris' phone beeped. He had a text message. He patted his pockets, then dug for his phone and it beeped again.

Kevin rolled his eyes, then grabbed his coffee mug and sipped while pointedly looking away from him. Chris had never seen such a mulish look on JC's face. Kevin was so determined, but really, what could he do? JC was halfway across the world. If he didn't want to keep it in hispants, if he thought he was doing Kevin a favor...

Chris sighed and flipped open his phone.

_OMG. HowieD_

_Sorry. Wrong button. Bad phone. He's a demon btwn the sheets_

Fuck.

His phone beeped again, and Chris reluctantly read JC's next message.

_Call you later. But he's the prettiest, toppiest little bitch. OMG_

Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.

"What?" Kevin said.

"Well, life's just swell. He's already fucked Howie and you're still here."

*

Wow. Brian was right. Something was definitely up with Kevin.

Howie closed the shower door and reached for the controls. As soon as he had a good, hard, pulsing jet of water working on his back and thighs, he let himself think about it. Maybe he'd been selfish, taken advantage of Kevin when he wasn't feeling like himself, but... Holy shit. Who could blame him?

Kevin had come to his room last night, handed him a bottle of margarita mix, and said some weird stuff about being JC and let's get busy. Once Howie had mixed up a few drinks and realized that, holy shit, Kevin was asking for some kinky role-playing and some no-strings, friendly sex, well... Where was the harm, as long as Kristin didn't find out?

It had been fun, pushing Kevin against the wall, bending him over the arm of the couch, pinning him down on the bed and talking as nasty as he could, calling him "JC" and a cock-hungry freak. He'd really overdone it, all night and half the morning. Hell, he shouldn't have abused his leg and groin muscles like that, not right before a show.

He adjusted the shower head again, got it to work on a knot near his tail bone. Yeah. That was good.

Well, he was glad they'd done it, even if Kevin had looked a little freaked out right at the end. Howie'd been looking at the hickey he'd left on Kevin's thigh, thinking that it looked bad, but he could come up with a story for it.

"If you want, me and Nick will come up with a story. We'll say you backed into a table or... we were playing pool and had a freak billiard accident. You know Kristin has a soft spot for crazy Nicky stories."

"Kristin? What are you talking about?"

"She's joining the tour tomorrow, right?" Howie traced 'round the bruise. "She's going to notice this."

"Fuck!" Kevin sat up, his eyes wide and panicked. "Fuck. That's not good--"

"Hey, hey..."

"Oh, Howard. I'm sorry, I've gotta-- Um." Kevin leaned over and gave Howie another of those great, warm, soft-hard kisses. "Last night was-- It was awesome, but I better--"

Howie laid a finger over Kevin's lips.

"Shh. Go on, we had fun. It doesn't have to be a drama."

"You're sure?" Kevin asked, while rolling out of bed.

Howie slapped his ass.

"Yeah. Go on."

"I don't, I don't wanna-- Will things be weird?"

"Everything's fine."

And it was fine. Howie couldn't remember the last time he felt so positive about Kevin. It was really a pity that he wasn't this kind of weird more often.

*

JC wasn't answering his goddamn phone.

Kevin wanted to throw things and scream, but that wouldn't accomplish anything. Instead, he sat and tried to breathe deeply--but not so deeply that he caught another whiff of Chris, because Chris smelled good, like seriously good, like it was making JC's dick tingle and twitch--and calculate time zones. They'd be leaving for the venue now. There'd be soundcheck and meeting with fans, and fucking JC wouldn't be able to pick up until the opening act was playing, and then Kevin wouldn't be able to yell at him 'cause JC had to go out there and put on the performance of his life or Kevin would fucking kill him as soon as--

"Whoa, whoa," Chris said. "You're turning red again, buddy. You need to--"

"God. Will you just... shut up and go take a shower already?"

Chris froze. His arm was outstretched; he'd been passing a drink to him.

"What?" Chris' voice was tight, and Kevin watched how the Scotch seemed to vibrate and shimmer in its glass.

"Please. Go shower. Your cologne. It's... It's making my nose itch."

"I'm not wearing cologne."

"You've just spent an hour trying to convince me that I need to fuck my cousin. That the world would be a better place if I fucked my cousin, my male cousin, who is like a brother to me."

"I didn't mean it like that. I'm just sayin' the world would be a better place if it didn't shame you like that and make you repress these feelings and become even more upti--"

"Brian doesn't get me hot!"

"Yeah," Chris said. "You've convinced me. That's why we're going to tell 'C to fuck AJ instead."

Kevin snatched the drink out of Chris' hand and got the hell out of there.

He ended up in a guest room that was full of bamboo and pale prints. It was the most normal-looking space he'd seen here. He fought with the window, got it open, and leaned out--it was nice, how so few homes in California had screens on their windows. It was one of the few good things about this fucking place, though you couldn't pay him enough to make him stay anywhere but home in Kentucky. He missed it. He missed being at home with his wife. He missed going to bed with her every night. He wanted to hold her close every night, to make love to her and just be with her, and this whole thing was ridiculous. He didn't want to make love to anyone else, and he certainly didn't want JC to touch her. No matter what JC thought, this whole thing was up to Kevin. He just had to hurry up and fix JC before he slept with anyone else.

So that meant, what? He'd made that appointment with Justin for JC. Did he need to speed that up? There hadn't been anything else that had really grabbed his attention as something that needed to be dealt with, unless it was the whole thing with the way his body reacted to Chris' smell. Could he handle both of those things?

Hmm. Where had he left JC's phone?

Justin was a busy guy. Everyone wanted a piece of him, and Kevin knew there was a chance that he'd say no or get pissy because who was JC to be pushing him? But Kevin had to try, and when he fake hesitated on the phone and then said, "I'm sorry, J, I really am, but Chris showed up here all out of the blue, I just thought... old times, you know? Is there any chance you could comeover, do the music thing with me, before Chris has to leave?" Justin melted.

"Chris is there?"

"Yeah, man, but he says he can't stay long and like--"

"Why not? He's not doing anything, 'C. Why can't he make time for us?"

"I don't know, but if you could come over tonight or maybe tomorrow?"

"Yeah, yeah. I guess there's something I can cancel for tomorrow. Didn't want to do it anyway. Three okay?"

It would have to do. How much more damage could JC do in twenty-four hours?

"Yeah."

"Okay, I'll see you then."

"Thanks, J. This means a lot to me."

"No problem," Justin said and hung up.

Well, there wouldn't be any problems once Kevin was finished here.

He went to find Chris. He seemed to be privy to most of JC's secrets. Kevin would turn the tables on him and grill him. See if there was anything else he needed to put right.

Chris didn't seem too sure when he was told about the plans with Justin.

"Yeah, it'd be great if J and 'C started writing together again and shit. But, I don't know if you've noticed, but you're not actually JC. Justin's going to notice."

Kevin shrugged.

"Maybe he will and maybe he won't. And maybe you should give me some credit. I can handle it."

"He knows JC's musical style better than anyone."

"And he's so fuckin' eager to be friends with JC again, I don't think he'll notice."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah. And, you know what? If you're so fucking worried he's going to figure it out, why don't you run interference for me? You said that's what you used to do, so what's your problem? Too good to help out a Backstreet Boy? Or are you just a pussy and--?"

"Hey!"

JC's phone rang. Kevin grabbed it, and stuck his tongue out at Chris before answering.

"Yeah?"

"Why didn't you tell me your wife was coming?"

JC, finally.

"Why didn't you tell me you were planning to fuck your way through my band?"

"That's how it works."

"That's not how it works!"

"You said you do the same thing, Kevin. What did you expect?"

"I don't. I'm not a big, slutty, Samuel Beckett clone saving the world with my dick--"

"Hey!" JC said.

"Hey, hey!" Chris said and tried to grab the phone.

"Though I'll give you the benefit of the doubt and assume that that's really how it works for you, and you're not just using this as an excuse to get freaky with everyone you want."

"It's-- It's not."

"It's not like that," Chris said.

Kevin ignored him.

"I don't want to fuck your wife," JC said.

"Good. I don't want you to fucking touch her."

"I'd do it," JC said. "She's hot and all. But it's creepy."

"Kristin is not creepy!"

"No, no. Not like that. Just... I don't know who my father is, man. My biological father. Like when this started, I thought maybe my father had been like me, you know? And I love this life, but I don't want to make any babies this way."

"That doesn't even make sense."

"Yes, it does."

"Look, I'm not telling to you to fuck-- to have sex with my wife, but if you did, they'd be my fucking sperm."

"'Sperm'?" Chris said. "Why are you talking about--?"

"But would they?" JC asked. "Are you certain you know how the magic works? One hundred percent certain and willing to risk your future offspring--"

Oh, good lord.

"No. I'm not," Kevin said. "But it's not an issue. You're not going to fuck her. I'm working on things here. You should be back here tomorrow afternoon."

"Yeah?"

"I'm sure of it."

"Oh, that's great. Hey... do you think it would hurt, though, if I maybe watch a little porn with Nick and AJ tonight and do whatever comes naturally? Just to be on the safe side?"

"No!"

"Great!"

"No, no. I meant--"

"Oh, hey, they're calling for us. I gotta go."

"--don't do it."

Oh god.

*

After JC called, Kevin was still really agitated.

Chris thought it was overkill. What did Kevin have to worry about? They'd both agreed that JC wasn't going to fuck Kevin's wife. The worst that could happen now was that JC would come back knowing that Howie was great in the sack and decide that he wanted more of it. Howie had proved that he wasn't adverse to a little of the man-loving, and JC would easily hook up with him and it would be awful.

Howie was short and dark and pretty, and had a sweet temper to match his sweet voice. He was so sweet that JC was bound to fall in love if he was fucking him on a regular basis. And it would really be too much. Chris had three out of five of those traits, and it would burn, being so close to what JC wanted, but apparently not enough.

JC would be all in love and he wouldn't need Chris any more. He'd tell Howie about his leaps, and they'd probably laugh about it, how a leap had brought them together, and they'd talk about it, have long discussions about the differences in how JC fucked when he was JC and when he'd been Kevin. JC would stop calling for Chris' advice. He'd stop calling to share titillating details with him, and then that hot thing they'd just done for the first time ever--that hot phone thing that JC had said wasn't phone sex, even though Chris had really rather thought it was--would never happen again. And that would be a shame, a dreadful shame.

So. Yes. The worst had been done already. Kevin should just chill.

Kevin didn't agree when Chris told him so.

"I should chill?" Kevin said. "Why? Are you the expert here? Have you ever fucked a band mate? What do you know?"

Chris knew plenty. He opened his mouth to explain... then shut it again.

"Huh." Kevin quit his slump, sitting up straight and alert. "That's interesting. Which one?"

"I-- It's not like..."

"What's that? Chris Kirkpatrick's almost at a loss for words? Stop the presses."

"It's not like that!"

"It wasn't Justin," Kevin said. "I've seen you with him. Besides, he's too young."

"I'd never. It's gross that you'd even consider that!"

"You wanted me to fuck Brian, asshole."

"Oh, yeah. Okay, I'll give you that one. But I've never done shit with Justin."

"I don't think it's Lance. Though it's obvious he's--"

"You're a crazy, crazy man and you can leave Lance out of this."

"He's gay."

"Maybe. Probably. But we're not going to talk about it. And what's the point of this? You're just going to list all of the guys in my band? You wanna know about Joey, too, huh? Joey. Well, we've all seen Joey masturbating at least once and we've all walked in on Joey with a girl a time or two, but I'm pretty sure that still doesn't qualify as a threesome or anything to interest you--"

"I'm not asking out of curiosity. I--"

"It shouldn't even be an issue, what I've done with any guys. You're the one who's in the wrong body. That's the only reason I was asking you invasive questions before, to get you back where you belong."

Kevin stood up and held his arms out wide.

"Look at me. I'm not the only one out of my body here. Okay? I don't really give a fuck what you've done, except to prove you don't know shit."

He brought his arms in, smoothed a hand down his chest, down, down to cup his junk. It wasn't as sensual as it was when JC did it. It was angry, to make a point, but it was still a little sexy. Chris could maybe see it, JC touching himself in anger like that before yanking Chris forward hard.

"Tell me about this guy," Kevin said. "Tell me about JC. Which of you has he fucked? Which of you does he want to fuck?"

Chris knew--of course he knew--which of them JC had fucked. Couldn't help but know really, sharing the bus and all, but that wasn't his secret to tell. He sometimes played fast and loose with JC's secrets, but Justin's were another matter. Besides, that thing JC'd had with Justin was over. It had burned its course, no regrets. That couldn't be the reason Kevin was here now.

Kevin got all up in his space and pushed at him with little jabbing shoves to his shoulder.

"What are you hiding?" Jab. "What have you done with him?" Jab. "Why does he think you smell so fucking good?"

Chris knocked his hand away.

"Fuck off."

"Jesus, Kirkpatrick, how fucking clueless are you? Just tell me if there's any possible reason for the two of us to fuck. Because I'm getting the sense that there is."

Chris took a step back.

"What?"

"I think we should fuck."

"What? No. You're not gay."

"This--" Kevin jerked his hand down. Chris followed the gesture, and oh... Kevin was hard. Or JC's body was hard. "--has nothing to do with me."

"You're not gay," Chris said again, and immediately felt stupid for it. But holy fuck, what was he supposed to say? And was JC's body really interested... in him?

"This body thinks arguing with you is really fucking hot," Kevin said.

"Well... no offense, but that body also thinks it's really fucking hot to sing in front of an audience, too. And like... re-tiling bathrooms, and going to Starbucks, and maybe even traffic lights are hot. It's probably got nothing to do with me."

"You're sure? You and JC don't have any unfinished business?"

"I don't want to have sex with you!"

"It's not me!"

No, this so wasn't fair. Of course he'd thought about having sex with JC. And, hell, he wouldn't even mind having sex with Kevin, if Kevin was in his own body and was actually into it. But this, this wasn't right. He wanted JC to need him. He wanted to be JC's partner, providing assistance as he always had through all of JC's kinky leap adventures, and then be the guy JC came home to. It was stupid and it was private, and he didn't fucking want this half measure.

He'd had that before, kind of. When he'd been swapped with JC, at the end they'd... well. There'd been a lot going on there and Chris still wasn't entirely convinced that he'd had a deep-rooted need for any of it, but JC had sworn that Chris needed to feel free. He needed to give himself permission to want whoever and whatever he wanted without shame. And it had been this huge orgy. Okay, it was only a threesome, but it had fuckin' felt like an orgy because, holy fuck, Justin's mom. Chris was pretty sure that whenever you had sex with any of your buddies' mothers that automatically counted as an orgy. It probably counted as an orgy even if you just kissed her with tongue.

But there'd been a hot tub, and Lynn had pulled these two sets of nipple clamps out from nowhere. Yowza. Lynn had been all Hot, Wet, Dominatrix Mom and had played with them both and fucked them both and ended the night by watching them fuck each other. It had been mind-blisteringly hot. To this day, it was the wildest thing Chris had ever done. And the whole thing had also opened his eyes to JC, let him see beneath his surface geeky looks and freakish behavior.

And okay, so Chris has been maybe fascinated by JC ever since, but that doesn't mean he wants another halvsies, not-quite encounter with JC's body. It's the last thing he wants, especially since, after the last time, JC hadn't thought anything of it. He'd tried to talk to JC about it, but JC had been convinced that it hadn't been about Chris having sex with him, that it was about Chris learning to love and accept all of himself.

But what if it was the one thing necessary to bring JC back this time?

"Do you... Do you really think it might switch you back?" he asked.

Kevin looked thoughtful. He pat his dick--JC's dick--once. It still looked pretty hard.

"Yeah," Kevin said. "I think it's a good possibility. That is, I think if there's any doubt in your mind, any niggling thought that says, 'yeah, maybe Kevin's right,' then we should."

"Oh."

"I don't want to leave any stones unturned, any--"

"Cliches unsaid?" Chris said.

"Yeah."

"But you're still not gay."

"I'll figure it out."

Chris still didn't like it. Shouldn't it have made him feel a little excited? JC didn't look like a geek anymore. He had a fucking beautiful body. It shouldn't be a hardship to fuck it.

"I'm... uh. You want to?" Chris asked.

"We should."

Ugh.

"Um... okay, I guess..." There had to be some reason not to do this. Not now, at least. Maybe he could drink himself into it. What, what could he...? "But, um. We shouldn't now, right? Aren't you like in the middle of show over there? You switch back in the middle of... in the middle of... Fuck, I don't know what you guys sing. Switching back, it's not seamless though."

"Yeah," Kevin said. "That's a good point. We should wait until they're all on the buses."

"Great. Yeah, let's do that."

Chris left him there. He needed to break into JC's stash of really good stuff, not the pansy-ass liquor he'd served Kevin earlier.

*

Kevin wasn't gay. Not one fucking bit, and he was pretty sure that even if he was, Chris wouldn't be on his "to do" list. But that wasn't going to stop him. One, he was really horny right now. And, two, nothing stopped him when he was on a mission. He didn't accept excuses and failure, not from himself.

There was a chance this still wouldn't work, but he thought it made a certain kind of sense. If JC's leaps were always about sexual matters and Kevin didn't have any sexual issues that needed to be resolved, then it was highly likely that JC had one. And from where Kevin was standing, well, it sure looked like JC fucked around everywhere except for where it really counted. He'd never had a switch where the solution wasn't fairly simple and straightforward. People tended to be the most blind to the things that were right in front of their faces. He'd never had to go far out of his way to hunt for a solution. It was always right there, just needing to be puzzled out. So. It had to be either Justin or Chris.

And, yeah, Chris was weird-looking, kinda ugly and squat, but JC's body didn't seem to think so, the freak. And Justin was too much like Nick, not in looks, but still... Having to be gay with Justin would be much more traumatizing. So, he was going to do this, and he thought he knew how.

JC had just better check his fucking messages before going off to watch porn with Nick and AJ--or doing even worse things that Kevin didn't even want to imagine.

*

So Chris had maybe taken a hit or two of some of JC's silly shit, but no more than that because smoking up was just as likely to make him hyper-aware of the freakish, _oh my God, that's Kevin in there_-ness of the situation as it was to help him mellow out.

He'd gone down to the basement, down with the good whiskey and the big leather couches that didn't match JC's decor anymore, but were so fucking soft, both in the cushiness factor and texture-wise, that they'd spent plenty a night on them, as a band, stoned out of their minds and petting the fucking sofas. Chris loved it down here with JC's old stereo and the huge old TV and the smell that was really homey and JC-ish. Rich people really had the best basements, though maybe some of that was because Chris was really more comfortable in slightly-battered luxury than in the real thing.

He poured more whiskey, and decided that this was his nest and he was really happy here and he hoped Kevin never found him and he could just hide here in his soft haven and pet his dick and think about JC the other day, panting into the phone because he was such a freak and he'd loved taking pictures of Kevin's dick. It hadn't been JC's voice, but it had still been pure JC. JC who was so experienced and did so much freaky, kinky, crazy shit--and was so free and open about it--but still got so utterly turned on when he felt like he was doing something naughty.

Chris didn't really need JC's voice anymore. He loved JC's voice. It was a great voice, and it had certainly helped make them all a great deal of money, but he'd spent so many days and nights listening to JC speak in someone else's voice, talking about all sorts of things, but above all sex things, that the voice didn't matter. He'd learned JC's speech patterns. He knew JC's mind maybe better than he ever would have if he'd never had to listen for JC beneath the other voices.

It was like that stupid line in Justin's song, the one that made him sound like a fucking zombie. _I just love your... brain._

Maybe, maybe he could do this with Kevin if they like... taped it for JC. JC had a thing for seeing himself in video. Or if he thought all along about how he'd describe it to JC later, and JC could demonstrate what "real" phone sex was. Imagine what JC would say about it if Chris called him. What he'd say when Chris said, "And then you put your dick in me and was so fucking huge and you know what my ass is like--don't laugh, don't you fucking laugh. I have a fine ass, really delicate. You have to treat it right, yeah, yeah, god, yeah, like that 'C, fuck, yeah, put your hand--"

Chris grabbed the base of his dick and squeezed tight. Fuck. Fuck. He was too much of a pussy to take Kevin up on his offer, but he was ready to shoot his load here, all pathetic and alone in JC's basement. Great.

He heard footsteps on the stairs and quickly tucked himself back into his pants.

"Hey," Kevin called. "You down here? The phone's for you."

That couldn't be right. No one would call JC's looking for him, not without trying his cell first.

"Chris?" Kevin called again. "JC says you're probably down here."

JC? Was the concert over already? How much time had he been moping down here?

Chris wiped his palms on his pants and cleared his throat.

"Yeah. Yeah, I'm down here."

Kevin came in, handed him the phone, and then stood there, looking at him.

"Hey," Chris said. "Maybe some privacy?"

Kevin snorted at that and backed up just far enough to sit on the other couch, directly across from him. Chris glared at him, but Kevin showed no sign of budging. Fine.

Chris brought the phone to his ear.

"Yeah?"

"Hey, Chris," JC said. Kevin's voice sounded all rumply and warm, and Chris thought maybe JC was calling from bed. He swallowed hard and resisted the urge to touch his dick. Not in front of Kevin.

"Hey, 'C. Everything okay? The show and--" The porn with the guys. "--everything?"

"Yeah, yeah," JC said. "Everything's good, and hey, look, me and Kev have been talking and uh..."

"I know you've been talking. He brought me the phone, you know. I can put two and two together."

JC chuckled.

"Yeah, it's like that song."

"What?"

"'You and you and me, together we make three,' something, something, something..."

Oh, for crying out loud. Was the world out to taunt Chris tonight or what?

"'C, you know that's a parody, right? A parody of us."

"It's still a good song. Nice beat, addresses a real-life issue in a soothingly lyrical way--"

"'C."

JC coughed.

"Yeah, yeah. Okay. The thing is, Kevin says he's ready to go back. He says this experience has brought him to several important realizations, mainly about what he wants out of life and how he wants to leave Backstreet now, while things are still fairly good, and he actually wants to be with the guys doing what they do. He's afraid that if he leaves it too long, he's going to lose that, you know?"

"Wow."

"Yeah. But it's cool, right? Doesn't want Backstreet to be a... a... sour taste left in his mouth."

"Doesn't want to be a bitter old man like us?"

"Oh, no," JC said. "We're not bitter. We're just... you know... we're..."

"Not as happy as we could be."

"Exactly, man. I knew you'd understand. You always get me, Chris, and that's really kind of awesome 'cause like. I know there's times when you really wish you didn't."

That made Chris feel guilty. It wasn't-- He didn't mind all that much.

"It's not all that bad," Chris said. "It's like, yeah, I don't want to admit it, but there's an international language of freaks or something that--"

"Transcends the different flavors of freaks?"

"Well. That's one way of putting it. I don't actually go around licking freaks, I--"

"I think you should."

Uh, what?

"Lick freaks? Is that like kissing toads?"

"Chris, um. Here's the thing. Kevin was talking to me, and he's right, man. I need to balls up and make a confession here."

Chris wasn't sure that he liked the sound of this.

"Don't do this just because Kevin tells you to. What does he know? He's only a Backstreet Boy."

Chris shot a glance over to Kevin. He was just sitting there, looking both amused and unimpressed.

"Backstreet," Chris said, putting as much of a sneer into it as he could. "Baaackstreeeet."

Kevin smiled and flipped him off.

"Chris," JC said. "I'm like confessing here. Could you maybe flirt with Kevin later?"

"I'm not--"

"I know how you flirt, man. I've been watching it for years."

Chris laughed.

"That's because you're a dirty, dirty voyeur."

"That's 'cause half of the time, it's aimed at me."

"Oh," Chris said.

"Yeah."

"It's kind of automatic, you know? I see pretty things and I just... run away at the mouth a little."

Chris squirmed a bit and wished Kevin would go the fuck away. He wasn't into public humiliation.

"I was flirting back."

"Oh," Chris said.

"Yeah."

"I, uh... I didn't notice that."

"Well, that's kinda my fault. I guess I've been real subtle. Like, uh. Well. When I leap, I... I don't really need your help that often."

Oh. Well, fine then. Chris swallowed the sudden lump in his throat and turned on the couch, so at least he couldn't see Kevin watching him learn just how pathetic he was.

"I just, um..." JC paused, and Chris tried to think of something. There had to be something he could count or lyrics he could recite in his head, something so he didn't have to listen to this.

"I just really like talking about sex with you," JC said. "Like I could get off on it, so like... I've been using you. Unfairly using you for--"

"JC, if it really bothered me that one of my friends, one of my really hot friends, was talking dirty to me all the time, do you really think I wouldn't say something?"

Jesus.

"So... you don't mind it?"

"No. Come on, 'C, don't be stu--"

"So, what would you say if I was in my own body, and I like called you up and wanted to talk about sucking you off or--"

Oh, shit. Fuck Kevin. Chris had to grab himself.

"--how I'd really like to rim you again sometime--"

Oh. Oh fucking shit.

"--only like when we were both in our own bodies, and uh..."

"Yeah." Chris cleared his throat. "Yeah, that would be okay, 'C."

"And if you maybe put the phone on speaker now, and I asked Kevin to take your shirt off."

"Uh... I don't... I don't know. Do we really need the third party? I could, I could be pretty good here with just this."

"No," JC said. "I think this one time, we want Kevin, too. You can ignore him, just put me on speaker, and I'll talk to him. I'll tell him how I want him to bite your tits, and--"

Chris fumbled with the phone buttons and looked desperately over at Kevin, who had moved, who was standing in front of him, pulling one of JC's tanks up off of JC's fucking beautifully-defined chest, all whipcord muscles, and--

"Are we on speaker yet?" JC was saying in his ear. "Come on, this will be good. He's never done a guy, you know, so I'm going to have to be really specific, going to have to spell out every last detail to him. How I want to touch your cock, how much I want to taste it, how I want your balls inside my mouth--"

Fuck.

"Oh, fuck. JC."

*

JC was holding Kevin's phone tightly, and holding his dick with an equally harsh grip, when he started to feel that familiar strange tingle.

"Fuck," he gasped, and tried to keep telling Kevin how to press forward, how to open Chris up and just take him, and--

*

Kevin gasped and shook and felt a familiar jolt, and oh, fuck, fuck, please.

He shook again, then wrenched his eyes open and--

Yes. Yes. Thank fuck.

This looked like AJ's bunk, and he really didn't want to why exactly he was here, but just... thank God.

He really hadn't wanted to know what fucking Chris Kirkpatrick was like. God.

He shuddered again.

Fucking NSYNC.

*

At some point, Chris must have dropped the phone completely. Maybe they'd rolled over it or something. He'd lost JC's voice--Kevin's voice--telling them what to do. But they'd been so far gone. And god, god, it wasn't fair that someone as inexperienced as Kevin was so, so fucking good at fucking him. Maybe it was JC's muscle memory coming into effect, it was so...

God.

"JC," he managed to gasp. "JC. Keep talking. Talk to me."

"Geez," JC said. "You're so demanding. Do you think you could just chill a moment, let me do one thing at a time?"

Chris opened his eyes and stared up at JC.

"Hey," he said, because he was cool and relaxed and the Master of Understatement even when he wanted to squeal and let everyone know that ohmigod, ohmigod, JC Chasez is fucking me and smiling like he likes it.

"Hey," JC said back, and leaned down so he could kiss Chris before thrusting again.

"Hey," JC said again, because JC was cool and relaxed and a master of understatement, too.

"Welcome back," Chris said.

JC smiled.

"You and Ziggy got me home once again."

Chris started to giggle. He was maybe not quite the Master of Cool that he claimed to be, but that was okay. He was happy and JC was fucking him; these things happened.

"What?" JC said.

It was kinda hard to hum while giggling and being fucked, but Chris managed well enough that JC caught on.

"Okay, Al, if that's the way you want it."

 

_If you'll be my bodyguard,  
I can be your long lost pal!  
I can call you Betty,  
And Betty, when you call me,  
You can call me Al!  
You can call me Al ......_


End file.
